The "EXXON Valdez" oil spill was the "environmental 9/11," according to marine biologist and toxicologist, Riki Ott.  EXXON has effectively owned the story since then and says it's over, says Dr. Ott.  But she has evidence to the contrary that indicates everyone's public health is being adversely affected by very low levels of chemicals in our environment, levels well below what is currently thought to be safe. And a major culprit, she says, is oil.

Yes, oil spills are officially hazardous waste sites.  But few of us will ever work to clean up an oil spill, so what's the big deal? Put aside for a moment the ethical questions around the 11,000 workers potentially at risk from their work on Prince William Sound. In 1999, Dr. Ott reports, the United States Environmental Protection Agency included 22 PAHs found in crude oil on its list of things extremely hazardous to humans. The list also includes lead, dioxin, mercury, PCBs and DDT.

Here's where the story hits home.  More than 90% of the PAHs people encounter are not the result of oil spills, Dr. Ott found. They are the result of burning fossil fuels, what she calls poison that comes out of our cars' talepipes and out of power generation plants that burn coal or oil.  So Dr. Ott's reports from scientists studying the long-term effects of exposure to oil bears directly on us all, even before looking at the environmental devastation at Prince William Sound that she says is still very much in evidence.

Why don't we know these things? Dr. Ott describes a two-part covenant of silence.  She says the oil companies have persuaded judges that public knowledge of oil’s toxicity would hurt the economy so records are sealed.  And OSHA is not eager for people to know they never wrote the required health hazard evaluation of what actually happened on the cleanup.

Dr. Ott actually finds good news in all this.  She's made available growing evidence that there are real health hazards associated with oil. And we can change our ways -- we put these things into the environment, we can take them out. Learn more about the toxicity associated with oil. Find doctors who practice environmental medicine if you or someone you know have had long-term exposure to low levels of chemicals at home, at work, in traffic and even with pharmaceuticals. Analyze your own energy consumption so you can reduce it. Burn fewer lights. Heat and cool less. Find alternatives to fossil fuels while you wean yourself from them.

And finally, back to that ethical issue with the clean-up workers. Congress needs to step up to its responsibilities, Dr. Ott says. Oversight hearings are in order on the long-term health effects of oil to people and to the environment. It's the only way we can deal justly with those who cleaned up after the “EXXON Valdez.”  And it's the only way to prepare for the future.

 

[This Program was recorded January 28, 2005, in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.]